PixlBit

Alright, games be gettin' me outta control again, but I have a solution: narrow it down to one game I would buy day-one at full-price per season. I reserve the right to increase the number of games if I'm really, really excited about them. So, here's my summer 2022 list with some reserves (because I have them free on Game Pass or are free-to-play). Then I'll get into what I played on Thursday before I came up with this list. 

Baldurs Gate Dark Alliance 2: Out July 19th, next Tuesday. I played the heck out of the first BGDA game with my firend Mark when it came out like 20 years ago now. I don't think I ever played the second one, but I owned it at one time (Mark still owns it). The first one was also remastered and put out on Xbox (maybe other systems) maybe a year ago. I saw it didn't have online multiplayer which was a reason why I didn't get it. I assume this second one will also be only local co-op too, but I think I'm going to get it and play it. 

Destroy All Humans 2: Out August 30. I couldn't believe it when they remastered the first one, but I was double surprised they did the second one. I think I liked the second one even better than the first when it came out a dozen years ago or so. I can't wait. I think they might have added some new things like I saw they did the first one like multiplayer modes and new objectives. Multiplayer DLC for the first one just dropped. 

Backups: Shadowrun Trilogy: Out on Game Pass, so free for me. I'll be focusing on this more in between those others I just mentioned. 

Diablo Immortal: I don't usually go for phone games because it's distracting during work days, but I think I can manage to keep myself to playing this only on weekends. Should be interesting to play Diablo on my phone. 

Okay, now the skinny on yesterday's surprising plays:

Final Fantasy XIII: 

I had to play this for a Game Pass rewards but quickly got hooked for over 5 hours. I really like the active-time-battle system in this game. Switching paradigms was fun and strategic. Battles felt fast yet still controlable. The story is a bit like a soap opera to me, but I kind of enjoyed it. The visuals are stunning, at least in the cutscenes, if less so in the playable environments.

I stopped because I kept coming across this same pattern. I'd play a boss, it would have a second form and that second form would pull out some game ending attack out of nowhere and kill my team, then I'd replay it and win. In one case it was that I just needed to switch to a defensive paradigm at the right time, but in the last one I played, I didn't have such a thing and there was no sign that the boss would pull out a mega attack. The other problem about replaying battles is that you have to go through any cutscenes previous to the battle all over again with no skipping feature. This is a bit more than annoying after a while. Well, I may return to this sometime. I really enjoyed it. 

Paw Patrol The Movie: Adventure City Calls: 

I played the previous one in the series, Paw Patrol Mighty Pups Save Adventure Bay and enjoyed it. It was mostly very easy to play except in a few parts when I was going for 100% completion. This new game is even easier. I didn't think that was possible. It, like those Ryan games, was so easy I started getting really bored. One minigame reminded me of that Las Vegas Bus game. You just drive that bus across a featureless desert for hours and see if you can stand it. Here you run a puppy through very repetitive obsticles for 5 minutes or more. I almost quit. 

But, I finished the story missions in just a few hours and then half of the minigames in the last 30 minutes of the day. I want to get all the achievements but this game, unlike the previous one, doesn't even give you completion stats on each level, so only the achievements tell you what you haven't done to 100%. That's a problem, but I might finish it. I'm not keen on just abandoning a game to start my new plan, but we'll see. 

Oh, and this was out on Game Pass, so free for me. 

"til next week.